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Friday, July 25, 2014

WEIGHING IN ON GAZA

3 THINGS TO REMEMBER

Temecula, CA – Several friends and readers have asked me to
write something concerning the present state of hell in Palestine. Knowing I was
going to be asked this because of my writing stance on some major issues like
the recent migrant flap in Murrieta, I have been doing research on the subject
past the latest skirmish with its rising death toll of over 700 Palestinian
civilians and about 30 Israeli soldiers. So before I weigh into this discussion with a well written
piece by Stephen M. Walt,
Professor of International Affairs, Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of
Government, I would remind our readers of 3 things to remember.

First, Donald Sterling’s admission of how ‘black Jews’ are
treated is in reference to Israel being populated and run by Ashkenazi Jews. Second,
this epic struggle written about almost 2 thousand years ago shows it to be
continuing in spite of innocent deaths, like all the teenagers killed to light this
latest explosion of bloodshed. Possibly because of this, it has been predicted
from the Bible Code that Netanyahu will be assassinated, a prediction that couldn't be fulfilled until he came back out of retirement.

And three. Peace will
come to the Middle East, but it will be brought forth by the last anti-Christ. As
we all celebrate an end to the untenable relationship between the historically hostile
groups, the anti-Christ will lower the boom on us all. And it is not
like we weren’t warned, that’s the purpose of prophecy.

“The official name for Israel's latest assault on Gaza is
"Operation Protective Edge." A better name would be "Operation
Déjà Vu." As it has on several prior occasions, Israel is using weapons
provided by U.S. taxpayers to bombard the captive and impoverished Palestinians
in Gaza, where the death toll now exceeds 500. As usual, the U.S. government is
siding with Israel, even though most American leaders understand Israel
instigated the latest round of violence, is not acting with restraint, and that its actions make Washington
look callous and hypocritical in the eyes of most of the world.

This Orwellian situation is eloquent testimony to the
continued political clout of AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee)
and the other hard-line elements of the Israel lobby. There is no other plausible explanation for
the supine behavior of the U.S. Congress--including some of its most
"progressive" members--or the shallow hypocrisy of the Obama
administration, especially those officials known for their purported commitment
to human rights.

The immediate cause of this latest one-sided bloodletting
was the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli hikers in the occupied West
Bank, followed shortly thereafter by the kidnapping and fatal burning of a
Palestinian teenager by several Israelis. According to J.J. Goldberg's reporting in the Jewish newspaper Forward,
the Netanyahu government blamed Hamas for the kidnappings without evidence and
pretended the kidnapped Israelis were still alive for several weeks, even
though there was evidence indicating the victims were already dead. It
perpetrated this deception in order to whip up anti-Arab sentiment and make it
easier to justify punitive operations in the West Bank and Gaza.

And why did Netanyahu decide to go on another rampage in
Gaza? As Nathan Thrall of the International Crisis Group points out, the real motive is neither vengeance nor a
desire to protect Israel from Hamas' rocket fire, which has been virtually
non-existent over the past two years and is largely ineffectual anyway.
Netanyahu's real purpose was to undermine the recent agreement between Hamas
and Fatah for a unity government. Given Netanyahu's personal commitment to
keeping the West Bank and creating a "greater Israel," the last thing
he wants is a unified Palestinian leadership that might press him to get
serious about a two-state solution. Ergo, he sought to isolate and severely
damage Hamas and drive a new wedge between the two Palestinian factions.

Behind all these maneuvers looms Israel's occupation of
Palestine, now in its fifth decade. Not content with having ethnically cleansed
hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in 1948 and 1967 and not satisfied with
owning eighty-two percent of Mandatory Palestine, every Israeli government
since 1967 has built or expanded settlements in the West Bank and East
Jerusalem while providing generous subsidies to the 600,000-plus Jews who have
moved there in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Two weeks ago, Netanyahu confirmed what many have long suspected: he is
dead set against a two-state solution and will never--repeat never--allow it to
happen while he is in office. Given that Netanyahu is probably the most
moderate member of his own Cabinet and that Israel's political system is
marching steadily rightward, the two-state solution is a gone goose.

Worst of all, the deaths of hundreds more Palestinians and a
small number of Israelis will change almost nothing. Hamas is not going to
disband. When this latest round of fighting ends, the 4.4 million Palestinians
who live in the West Bank and Gaza will still be Israel's de facto
prisoners and still be denied basic human rights. But they are not going to
leave, mainly because Palestine is their homeland, but also because they have nowhere to go, especially given the turmoil in
other parts of the Middle East.

Eventually another ceasefire will be negotiated. The dead
will be buried, the wounded will recover, the tunnels now being destroyed will
be rebuilt, and Hamas will replenish its stockpile of missiles and rockets. The
stage will then be set for another round of fighting, and Israel will have
moved further down the road to becoming a full-fledged apartheid state.

Meanwhile, U.S. politicians and policymakers continue to
back a brutal military campaign whose primary purpose is not to defend Israel
but rather to protect its longstanding effort to colonize the West Bank.
Amazingly, they continue to support Israel unreservedly even though every U.S.
president since Lyndon Johnson has opposed Israel's settlements project, and
the past three American presidents--Clinton, Bush and Obama--have all worked
hard for the two-state solution that Israeli policy has now made impossible.

Yet as soon as fighting starts, and even if Israel
instigates it, AIPAC demands that
Washington march in lockstep with Tel Aviv. Congress invariably
rushes to pass new resolutions endorsing whatever Israel decides to do. Even
though it is mostly Palestinians who are dying, White House officials rush to
proclaim that Israel has "the right to defend itself," and Obama
himself won't go beyond expressing "concern" about what is happening.
Of course Israelis have the right to defend themselves, but Palestinians not
only have the same right, they have the right to resist the occupation. To put
this another way, Israel does not have the right to keep its Palestinian
subjects in permanent subjugation. But try finding someone on Capitol Hill who
will acknowledge this simple fact.

The explanation for America's impotent and morally bankrupt
policy is the political clout of the Israel lobby. Barack Obama knows that if
he were to side with the Palestinians in Gaza or criticize Israel's actions in
any way, he would face a firestorm of criticism from the lobby and his chances
of getting Congressional approval for a deal with Iran would evaporate.

Similarly, every member of the House and Senate--including
progressives like Senator Elizabeth Warren--knows that voting for those
supposedly "pro-Israel" resolutions is the smart political move. They
understand that even the slightest display of independent thinking on these
issues could leave them vulnerable to a well-funded opponent the next time
they're up for re-election. At a minimum, they'll have to answer a flood of
angry phone calls and letters, and, on top of that, they are likely to be
blackballed by some of their Congressional colleagues. The safer course is to
mouth the same tired litanies about alleged "shared values" between
Israel and the U.S. and wait till the crisis dies down. And people wonder why no
one respects Congress anymore.

To be sure, the lobby's clout is not as profound as it once
was. Public discourse about Israel, U.S. policy toward Israel and the lobby
itself has changed markedly in recent years, and a growing number of
journalists, bloggers and pundits--such as Andrew Sullivan, Juan Cole, Peter Beinart, M.J. Rosenberg, Max Blumenthal, Phyllis Bennis, Bernard Avishai, Sara Roy, Mitchell Plitnick, David Remnick, Phil Weiss
and even (occasionally) Thomas Friedman of the New York Times--are willing to speak
and write candidly about what is happening in the Middle East. Although most
Americans openly support Israel's existence--just as I do--their sympathy for
an Israel that acts more like Goliath than David is fading. The ranks of the
skeptics include a growing number of younger American Jews, who find little to
admire and much to dislike in Israel's actions and who are far less devoted to
it than were previous generations. Pro-peace groups such as J Street and Jewish Voice for Peace
reflect that trend and show that opinion among American Jews is far from
unified.

Moreover, AIPAC and other hard-line lobby groups could not
convince the Obama administration to intervene in Syria, and they have been
unable to convince the Bush or Obama administrations to launch a preventive
strike against Iran's nuclear infrastructure. They have also failed to derail
the nuclear negotiations with Tehran--at least so far--though not for lack of
trying. Pushing the U.S. toward another Middle East war is a lot for any
interest group to accomplish, of course, but these setbacks show that even this
"leviathan among lobbies" does not always get
its way.

But the lobby is still able to keep roughly $3 billionin U.S. aid to Israel flowing each year; it can still prevent U.S.
presidents from putting meaningful pressure on Israel; and it can still get the U.S. to wield its veto whenever a resolution criticizing Israel's
actions is floated in the U.N. Security Council. This situation explains why
the Obama administration made zero progress toward "two states for two
peoples": if Israel gets generous U.S. support no matter what it does, why
should its leaders pay any attention to Washington's requests? Obama and
Secretary of State John Kerry could only appeal to Netanyahu's better judgment,
and we've seen how well that worked.

This situation is a tragedy for all concerned, not least for
Israel itself. A Greater Israel cannot be anything but an apartheid state, and
exclusionary ethnic nationalism of this sort is not sustainable in the 21st
century. Israel's Arab subjects will eventually demand equal rights, and as
former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warned back in 2007, once that happens, "the state of
Israel is finished."

Unfortunately, AIPAC, the Anti-Defamation League, the
Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and assorted
Christian Zionist groups continue to exhibit a severe case of tunnel vision.
Because defending Israel no matter what it does is their main raison d'etre
(and central to their fundraising), they are unable to see that they are
helping Israel drive itself off a cliff. Similarly, those pliant members of
Congress who cravenly sign AIPAC-drafted resolutions are not true friends of
Israel. They are false friends who pretend to care but are really only
interested in getting reelected.

Historians will one day look back and ask how U.S. Middle
East policy could be so ineffectual and so at odds with its professed values --
not to mention its strategic interests. The answer lies in the basic nature of
the American political system, which permits well-organized and well-funded
special interest groups to wield significant power on Capitol Hill and in the
White House. In this case, the result is a policy that is bad for all
concerned: for the Palestinians most of all, but also for the U.S. and Israel
as well. Until the lobby's clout is weakened or politicians grow stiffer
spines, Americans looking for better outcomes in the Middle East had better get
used to disappointment and prepared for more trouble.”